Airframe

Rating:
Summary: dull unless you are a airplane mechanic
Review: I found this text to be dull and predictable. The continued reference to structure, by part number or something similar, was extremely boring. You could sense what was coming next for the characters. I have read every Crichton novel and this one is at the bottom of the heap. Save your money. This may have been done for bucks rather than bounce. Airframe needs to be grounded.

Rating:
Summary: clear and easy listening audio book
Review: The narrator is very excellent. Though I am not a native speaker of English, I can understand what the narrator is saying. Compared to other audio books, the sequence of story telling is so good planned.

Rating:
Summary: Airframe Crashed!
Review: How disappointing to pick up a Michael Crichton book expecting great "I can't put it down" reading. Shallow characters; read more like a screenplay. Boring with a rather unbelievable ending

Rating:
Summary: One Great Read, Crichton's best yet
Review: Well, actually 9.5. This is a great read and nothing could prepare me for the surprise ending. The story of a crash and the race to solve out WHY it happened make for one heck of a story. I couldn't put it down! Mr. Crichton does it again! I'll read it six more times while I wait for his next masterpiece. I'm sure it'll be great, but I doubt he can top Airframe!

Rating:
Summary: I read it in a day--couldn't put it down!
Review: Airframe is perhaps not the best book Mr. Crichton has written--but it IS a good read. I couldn't put it down and read it in a day. Michael Crichton's usual style embodies painstaking and massive research--and this book is no exception. I learned much about the airline industry by reading it--for example: I never knew that "ariplane manufacturers" do not make the engines that power the plane. It was also fascinating to learn what happens after an "incident" and the amount and type of testing that goes on by manufacturers. Although not as "exciting" as some of his other works, Airframe is definately worth reading

Rating:
Summary: At least we now know what he wanted to say...
Review: _Airframe_ is absolutly not his best novel to date, but it is a nice conclusion for his nay-saying 90s.

Since the _Jurassic Park_ in 1989, Crichton becomes an author that bashes a lot. He attacks biotech, and Japanese tycoons, and femm, so to get readers' attention. We now know why he did it. It is all about the power.

From the beginning of Crichton's writing career in mid-60s, he writes a lot on female issues. I have all 8 John Lange books, but only read two of them so far, so I can't say too much about this period. But started from his _A Case of Need_ (a book written under the psuedonym "Jeffery Hudson", a famous 19th century dwarf), Crichton wrote intensively on female issues. In this book, a young woman seeking for independence dies for malpractice of abortion, then illegal in the pre-Roe-vs-Wade United States. A doctor (written in third person, I remember) who wants to clear the bad name for his American-Chinese collegue started to investigate...

The dead body, Karen Rendall, is the mascot of a Boston-based medical family. She wants to escape from her reality, and failed. That's why she lost her life.

The movie _Carey Treatment_ is loosely based on this novel, and is lousy to death. It is just another seen-and-forget whodunit flick Hollywood made every year. If you want to read more about this issue, read Robin Cook's _The Acceptable Risk_. It mentioned about another Boston raised family girl. Her medical career, medical boy friend, and best-of-all, the Salem witchcraft trial that links herself and her 17th century great-...-grandmother. This is a nice book talking abot the forming of role model to a woman who does not know what to do.

Women in Crichton's books are evolving. From a dead body to be exaimed, to a math genius who can risk the life of a team just because she wanted to (Karen Ross of _Congo_), to someone who can start a sex war (Meredith Johnson of _Disclosure_), and to someone who can arrange a counter attack (whoever she was in the f**king lousy _The Lost World_). His female casts are more and more comfortable with power. They are much more reasonable. And responsible. Cathy Singleton of the _Airframe_ is absolutely a woman like this. She is good at her field, she is divorced, the whole plot happends at the week her daughter is at her ex-husband's house. She is free to Rambo the system. And she confronts woman -- Jennifer Malone, a reckless new kid in town who knows not a damn about knowledge but seeks power.

You might say that the enemy Singleton faced is Marder and Richman, no, they are not. Look who's the last one mentioned in the book at page 351. Our dear Jennifer.

That's why I believe I've grasped Crichton's hidden moral in these books. He wanted to talk about power. As time goes by, women are actually gaining more power. There is no true equal between sexes. And losers can still exploit other's sympathy to gain power. You can not be alone, if you are the member of a group who consisted half of the world's people. Whoever owns the power, in Crichton's view, should not be left unsupervised. And whoever owns the power, as time flies, will learn to use it better. That's probably why he bashes around.

The diaster 35,000 ft above, I believe, is based on two real events. A crash of China Airlines (a Taiwan carrier) at Nagoya Japan, 1994 for the autopilot issue. And a crash in Russia where the pilot lets his child fool around with the plane.

Miss Miriam in _The Great Train Robbery_ is the woman who handles her power best in Crichton's former books. Now Singleton becomes the one who can control herself so well. Just like Miss Miriam. Otherwise this book is still a piece of trash. He even dares to recycle Virtual Reality for this novel. The original Crichton flavor is gone. We no longer see breathtaking (and also errornous) high tech detail in this book, but at least we now know what he wanted to say.

Rating:
Summary: Airframe flies high in full afterburn as the mystery unfolds
Review: This book was a joy to read. The writing style is so smooth and the story moves along quickly with no wasted narrative. I was dissapointed at the end--not because of the ending--but just because there wasn't any more to read

Rating:
Summary: Gripping Page-Turner, Put It Down If You Can!
Review: Not as far-fetched or sci-fi as his other books, yet no less exciting. Crichton is one writer who actually knows what he's writing about. I'm amazed by his technical knowledge. Almost scary because this kind of thing really happens.

Rating:
Summary: A screenplay pretending to be a novel
Review: No, no Mr Chrichton, if you need to write a screenplay, please do not publish it as a novel! I loved Jurassic and Rising Sun,but please do not waste my money again. You just left out ...lights..action...! Your screenplays are excellent and make for wonderful TV and movies. Please just make up your mind which hat you are wearing

Rating:
Summary: Plot weak, characters so-so, technically excellent.
Review: The characters are probably portrayed more accurately than I would care to admit. The plot left a good deal to be desired. However, as a former employee of a major airline I can relate very well to the electronics, and the wires hanging all over the place. Chrichton has had to have done quite a bit of research, and walking about in a hangar to have related the technical details as well as he did. The plot was not at par with Chriton's better works. However, compared with the work of his peers, it was none the less very good. The story went very quickly and did manage to hold my attention. There was a considerable amount of white space, and I can't help thinking he could have saved a few trees by combining a few of the chapters. The overall rating is the lowest I have given Chrichton for any of his works, and that is mostly due to the plot. It's a good book for a rainy weekend, or when your mother-in-law is over.